Climate Warming and Ice Weakening Trigger Alpine Glacier Collapses - The Marmolada Case [Dolomites, Northern Italy]
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https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL121279 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-3027-2025 <-- shared technical article
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Marmolada_serac_collapse <-- shared Wikipedia page
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H/T @Alberto Bellin | Professor at University of Trento
[anecdotal – in the early 1990s, I chose to spend a winter as a ski bum/guide, living in Arabba, Dolomites, Sud Tyrol; I still remember the excellent days when I got to ski on the Marmolada]
“[The authors] share [their] latest research on the tragic 2022 Marmolada glacier collapse in Italy… While [their] back analysis leverages the a posteriori determination of the rupture surface to understand why the collapse occurred, the core contribution of our work is forward-looking.
[They] introduce a simplified approach for glacier risk analysis that only requires surface topography data to be applied. [They] hope this methodology can streamline hazard assessments for vulnerable alpine regions globally…”
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“ABSTRACT: The rapid retreat of temperate mid-latitude glaciers due to global warming causes dramatic mass loss and increases their instability. Using a synthesis of thermodynamic and mechanical laws, [yhey] constructed a three-dimensional stability model and applied it in the analysis of the collapse of a portion of the Marmolada Glacier in northeastern Italy that occurred on 3 July 2022. The analysis indicated that the glacier was in critical equilibrium because an increased englacial temperature acted synergistically with diffuse fractures near the rupture surfaces to reduce the ice shear strength. In addition, the increase in basal water pressure caused by meltwater rendered the glacier unstable even at higher shear strengths. As most Alpine glaciers are retreating under similar climatic conditions, [they] raise concerns about worsening hazard scenarios across mid-latitude mountain regions and emphasize the importance of predictive tools—such as that developed in this study—to support hazard mitigation efforts.
PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: On 3 July 2022, a portion of the Marmolada glacier, near Punta Rocca, collapsed and caused the death of 11 mountaineers. This dramatic event had a considerable impact on the media, and authorities were concerned about the risk that other collapses might occur in this and other glaciers of the Dolomites, a well-renowned mountain region of the southeastern Alps and one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. [They] analyzed the possible causes of the collapse by developing a three-dimensional thermo-mechanical model. The analysis concluded that the collapse was caused by increased internal ice temperature and the development of a dense network of fractures, reducing the ice shear strength, with melting water that possibly contributed by increasing the basal pressure. [They] also showed that collapsing conditions can be identified with a simplified model version approximating the sliding basal surface as a plane with a slope equal to the surface slope. The developed approach can be used in hazard identification and risk analysis of mountain glaciers…”
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